(VOVworld)- The bodies of 162 people had been pulled from the waters off the Egyptian coast by Friday, two days after a boat carrying hundreds of migrants capsized in the Mediterranean while attempting to head to Europe.

Egyptian coast guard and rescue workers bring ashore bodies recovered from a Europe-bound boat that capsized off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, in Rosetta, Egypt- (AP Photo/Eman Helal)

Dozens more are feared dead, said Mohammed Sultan, the governor of Beheira, who provided The Associated Press with the latest figures. He also said that the search operation is still ongoing. Many of them are believed to be children and women who were unable to swim away when the boat sank. Wahdan el-Sayyed, the spokesman of the Nile Delta province of Beheira, said that the search operation was ongoing.